An important amount of research effort in psychology and neuroscience over the past decades has focused on the problem of social cognition. This problem is understood as how we figure out other minds, relying only on indirect manifestations of other people's intentional states, which are assumed to be hidden, private and internal. Research on this question has mostly investigated how individual cognitive mechanisms achieve this task. A shift in the internalist assumptions regarding intentional states has expanded the research focus with (...) hypotheses that explore the role of interactive phenomena and interpersonal histories and their implications for understanding individual cognitive processes. This interactive expansion of the conceptual and methodological toolkit for investigating social cognition, we now propose, can be followed by an expansion into wider and deeply-related research questions, beyond (but including) that of social cognition narrowly construed. Our social lives are populated by different kinds of cognitive and affective phenomena that are related to but not exhausted by the question of how we figure out other minds. These phenomena include acting and perceiving together, verbal and non-verbal engagement, experiences of (dis- )connection, management of relations in a group, joint meaning-making, intimacy, trust, conflict, negotiation, asymmetric relations, material mediation of social interaction, collective action, contextual engagement with socio-cultural norms, structures and roles, etc. These phenomena are often characterized by a strong participation by the cognitive agent in contrast with the spectatorial stance typical of social cognition research. We use the broader notion of embodied intersubjectivity to refer to this wider set of phenomena. This Research Topic aims to investigate relations between these different issues, to help lay strong foundations for a science of intersubjectivity - the social mind writ large. To contribute to this goal, we encouraged contributions in psychology, neuroscience, psychopathology, philosophy, and cognitive science that address this wider scope of intersubjectivity by extending the range of explanatory factors from purely individual to interactive, from observational to participatory"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

This article investigates some main characteristics of TED talks, a new popularizing genre. In particular, it examines the process that recontextualizes scientific speeches into TED talks presented by their own authors, using several discursive conventions to negotiate their role as experts and to establish a closer relationship with their audience. Through a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the 2012 TED talks, the article will draw upon Hyland’s concept of ‘proximity’, and the five elements that he takes into account when illustrating (...) proximity in popularizing texts: organization, argument structure, credibility, stance and reader engagement. It will be observed that the linguistic techniques used to enhance comprehensibility, the use of evaluative and emotive adjectives, and the direct involvement of the audience through the use of inclusive pronouns help the speaker breach the expert/audience barrier, establishing an ‘alignment’. Rather than focusing on proximity of membership, these talks emphasize proximity of commitment, by concentrating not on the speakers’ identity and reputation, but rather on how they are personally involved in the topic of the speech. These techniques reveal TED’s idea that science should be ideas to be discussed rather than information to be passively received. (shrink)

This article argues that foreign multinational corporations in South Africa cannot evade an ethical choice, how best to exercise their leverage against apartheid? Disinvestment is only one, ambiguous option. MNCs need clear ethical goals and an effective strategy. Both arise from the political economy of the MNC . It involves 3 relationships, between the MNC parent and its subsidiary; the MNC home society and host society; and the MNC home state and host state. That political economy explains the MNC's dependency (...) and modernization effects . Those effects give foreigners some leverage against apartheid; but an effective and ethical MNC strategy is needed . It involves four goals: dismantling apartheid, a mixed economy, full democracy, and a negotiated peace . It suggests a sequence of MNC/home state options from Do Nothing or Divest to More Corporate Activism, Home State Support, and International Sanctions . But victory is not around the corner; rather, we are all condemned to freedom. (shrink)

The enactive approach to cognition distinctively emphasizes autonomy, adaptivity, agency, meaning, experience, and interaction. Taken together, these principles can provide the new sciences of language with a comprehensive philosophical framework: languaging as adaptive social sense-making. This is a refinement and advancement on Maturana’s idea of languaging as a manner of living. Overcoming limitations in Maturana’s initial formulation of languaging is one of three motivations for this paper. Another is to give a response to skeptics who challenge enactivism to connect “lower-level” (...) sense-making with “higher-order” sophisticated moves like those commonly ascribed to language. Our primary goal is to contribute a positive story developed from the enactive account of social cognition, participatory sense-making. This concept is put into play in two different philosophical models, which respectively chronicle the logical and ontogenetic development of languaging as a particular form of social agency. Languaging emerges from the interplay of coordination and exploration inherent in the primordial tensions of participatory sense-making between individual and interactive norms; it is a practice that transcends the self-other boundary and enables agents to regulate self and other as well as interaction couplings. Linguistic sense-makers are those who negotiate interactive and internalized ways of meta-regulating the moment-to-moment activities of living and cognizing. Sense-makers in enlanguaged environments incorporate sensitivities, roles, and powers into their unique yet intelligible linguistic bodies. We dissolve the problematic dichotomies of high/low, online/offline, and linguistic/nonlinguistic cognition, and we provide new boundary criteria for specifying languaging as a prevalent kind of human social sense-making. (shrink)

Conversation analysis research on naturally occurring NS-NS talk-in-interaction has revealed that participants observably orient to shared expectations of the socio-interactional role of idiomatic expressions, particularly with regard to topic termination and transition. This study has analysed NS-NNS, as well as NS-NS, spontaneous conversation in order to evaluate and uncover recurrent features associated with the use of such expressions. Two main sequential patterns have been observed: one, occurring in both NS-NS and NS-NNS talk, is connected with topic termination and transition, in (...) some cases being extended to allow for the negotiation of interactional alignment between participants; the other, a `negotiative metatalk sequence', follows idiomatic expressions at points of possible topic conclusion and deals with NS-NNS trouble spots in which conversational participants' lack of shared understanding triggers coordinated negotiatory action that clears the way for the introduction of a new topic. (shrink)

In this paper we offer some ideas on the relationship between metaphysics of causation and common explanatory practices of behaviour. We first suggest a sort of “negotiating model” for theorizing about mental causation, and then examine the so-called causal closure argument focusing on some morals one can draw from it that further illustrate the model we recommend.

Food sovereignty can be conceptualized as a political proposal for social change in the field of agri-food relations. However, specific strategies of how to achieve this transformative potential are diverse, and context-dependent. The paper explores this diversity by examining discourses on the food sovereignty construction process in Catalonia. Using Q methodology we have explored visions held by individuals participating in the social movement for food sovereignty, identifying five discourses: activism, anti-purism, self-management, pedagogy, and pragmatism. Key strategies of transformation include social (...) mobilization, institutional negotiation, self-management, education to foster value change, and politics of the possible. The relevance assigned to ideological affinity explains different views on the subject of transformation, particularly regarding the involvement of the administration and the productive sector. As regards transformative strategies, discourses assign differing importance to the role of agency for effecting social transformation, which influences their assessment of individual actions as an effective means for social change. Forms of individualized and classic collective action currently coexist within the Catalan agri-food movement, but such diversity is not acknowledged as an effective alliance towards food sovereignty. Moreover, all discourses agree to a dual definition of food sovereignty, both as a process, that is, as democratization of the decision-making process in the agri-food sector, and as a result, that is, establishing an agri-food model alternative to the neo-liberal one. However, the discourses share an unclear view of democracy as decentralized collective decision-making that does not make explicit how this model should be implemented to achieve social control of the agri-food system. (shrink)

The temporality of intentions and actions in situations of social interaction can sometimes be paradoxical. I argue that in these situations it may sometimes be possible to conceive of individual acts that can, in a strong sense, be intended retroactively. This could happen when the relational patterns in social interaction literally alter the virtual structure of a participant's past corporeal intentions resulting in an odd experience of having intended something all along without knowing it. I propose that this possibility should (...) be interpreted as more than just a narrowly epistemic phenomenon. Examining this claim involves clarifying the enactive perspective on intentionality, which I do here. The enactive approach rejects the model of a causal relation between intention and action for one of an intrinsic qualitative relation between the two as facets of sense-making. I develop this idea and compare it with Merleau-Ponty's Fundierung model of the mutual relation between corporeal and reflexive intentionality to show that co-regulated moves/affections during social interaction may modulate both arcs of this relation, creating the possibility of a re-signification that alters not the actuality but the virtual tendencies that preceded the social act. (shrink)

In this book, Roberto Di Ceglie offers an historical, theological, and epistemological investigation exploring how commitments to God and/or the good generate the optimum condition to achieve knowledge. Di Ceglie criticizes the common belief that to attain knowledge, one must always be ready to replace one's convictions with beliefs that appear to be proven. He defends a more comprehensive view, historically exemplified by outstanding Christian thinkers, whereby believers are expected to commit themselves to God and to related beliefs no matter (...) how convincing the evidence contradicting such beliefs appear to be. He also argues that both believers and unbelievers can commit themselves to God and the good, respectively, thereby creating a spiritual turn in epistemology that enables them to generate the best possible condition for conducting rational enquiries and discussion. (shrink)

What is the legacy of Theory after the deaths of so many of its leading lights, from Jacques Derrida to Roland Barthes? Bringing together reflections by leading contemporary scholars, Dead Theory explores the afterlives of the work of the great theorists and the current state of Theory today. Considering the work of thinkers such as Derrida, Deleuze, and Levinas, the book explores the ways in which Theory has long been haunted by death and how it might endure for the future."--Page (...) 4 of cover. (shrink)

Ibrāhīm Dīnānī, Ghulām Ḥusayn - Interviews ; Islamic philosophy.

Di Massimo di Tiro si conoscono pochi dettagli biografici. Le fonti antiche, concordi nel ritenerlo ‘filosofo’ e ‘filosofo platonico’, affermano che le sue dissertazioni o indagini filosofiche sono da ricondursi al suo primo soggiorno a Roma, al tempo dell’imperatore Commodo. Le quarantuno dissertazioni filosofiche di Massimo di Tiro offrono una visione privilegiata della cultura imperiale del secondo secolo, epoca in cui, dominante l’eleganza stilistica, anche la filosofia non disdegnava di dispiegare i propri contenuti mediante il bello stilo dello strumento retorico. (...) Nello svolgimento dei temi, perlopiù platonici nell’ispirazione e orientati ad argomenti presenti al dibattito coevo, ma comunque non escludenti altre influenze filosofiche, Massimo di Tiro si mostra pensatore dalla non banale semplicità. Muovendosi fra filosofia e letteratura, fra Platone e Omero, egli calibra l’erudizione sul filtro di un’esigenza educativa di ampio respiro. Nel volume si presenta la prima traduzione italiana completa dal greco. Il commento critico, aggiornato al dibattito accademico internazionale, mira a mostrare come l’opera del pensatore meriti una rinnovata attenzione nell’ambito degli studi classici letterari e filosofici, giacché nel delineare il quadro culturale del tempo essa consente di meglio precisare alcuni non marginali aspetti del platonismo del secondo secolo. (shrink)

Rodolfo Sacco developed the idea of “mute behaviours” during his studies on mute law. The notion of “mute behaviours” denotes an action that is able to mould a legal relationship without any use of language. Certainly, this concept may give rise to some doubts in relation to the attribution—to a behaviour qualified as mute—of the capability to affect dynamics involving a plurality of people. Aiming to clarify the idea of “mute behaviours” by this point of view, the authors analysed the (...) semiotic terminology used by Sacco himself to explain this notion and the issue of its silent nature. Therefore, the terms “signifying signs” and “symptoms”, deemed by Sacco—respectively—incompatible and compatible with the theory of mute behaviours were considered. The former term was traced back to the notion of conventional and arbitrary sign, the notion of the latter was reconstructed linking it to the concept of signs based on signification and suggesting a possible framework in view of the idea of “presentative meanings” developed by the philosopher Guido Morpurgo-Tagliabue. Clarified this dichotomy by a terminological analysis, the authors noticed—as affirmed by Rodolfo Sacco himself—the impossibility to ascribe the notion of gesture to the mute behaviour’s category, as some exegetes proposed. Consequently to this last remark, the authors tried to analyse the relationship between gestures and “mute behaviours”, identifying the category of “sema-pragmatic acts”, that includes gestures and may be seen as an intermediate phase between “mute behaviours” and legally relevant behaviours operated by speaking. (shrink)

Aristotelian philosophy is generally regarded as incompatible with the mathematical methods and principles that form the basis of modern science. This book offers an entirely new perspective on this presumed incompatibility. It surveys the tradition of the Oxford Calculators from its beginnings in the fourteenth century until Leibniz and the philosophy of the seventeenth century and explores how the Calculators' techniques of quantification expanded the conceptual and methodological limits of Aristotelianism. In the process, it examines a large number of authors, (...) some of them never studied in this context. Exploring the relationship between various late medieval disciplines, the book sheds new light on the problem of continuity vs. discontinuity between scholasticism and modern science. Beyond its historiographical purpose, this book also hopes to be a source of inspiration for present-day philosophers of science. Co-edited by Daniel A. Di Liscia and Edith D. Sylla with the collaboration of Paul Bakker. (shrink)

Philosophers have long struggled to reconcile Martin Heidegger's involvement in Nazism with his status as one of the greatest thinkers of the twentieth century. The recent publication of his Black Notebooks has reignited fierce debate on the subject. These thousand-odd pages of jotted observations profoundly challenge our image of the quiet philosopher's exile in the Black Forest, revealing the shocking extent of his anti-Semitism for the first time. For much of the philosophical community, the Black Notebooks have been either used (...) to discredit Heidegger or seen as a bibliographical detail irrelevant to his thought. Yet, in this new book, renowned philosopher Donatella Di Cesare argues that Heidegger's "metaphysical anti-Semitism" was a central part of his philosophical project. Within the context of the Nuremberg race laws, Heidegger felt compelled to define Jewishness and its relationship to his concept of Being. Di Cesare shows that Heidegger saw the Jews as the agents of a modernity that had disfigured the spirit of the West. In a deeply disturbing extrapolation, he presented the Holocaust as both a means for the purification of Being and the Jews' own "self-destruction": a process of death on an industrialized scale that was the logical conclusion of the acceleration in technology they themselves had brought about. Situating Heidegger's anti-Semitism firmly within the context of his thought, this groundbreaking work will be essential reading for students and scholars of philosophy and history as well as the many readers interested in Heidegger's life, work, and legacy. (shrink)

This book looks at how science investigates the natural world around us. It is an examination of the scientific method, the foundation of science and basis on which our scientific knowledge is built.... [It] addresses all concepts pertaining to the scientific method. It includes discussions on objective reality, hypotheses and theory, and the fundamental and unalienable role of experimental evidence in scientific knowledge.... Di Ventra also examines the limits of science and the errors we make when abusing its method in (...) nonscientific contexts. By reflecting on the general method, the reader can critically sort through other types of scientific claims, and judge their ability to apply it in study and in practice. (shrink)

This Handbook offers a broad yet unified treatment of many philosophical issues connected with climate change, ranging from foundational puzzles to detailed applications. It extends to many branches of philosophy that are relevant to the understanding of the premises and implications of the impacts of climate change on human and nonhuman life on Earth. More specifically, the handbook examines the scientific accounts of climate change as well as its causes. It explores the tools offered by social sciences and humanities to (...) study the societal premises and impacts of climate change as well as delving deeper into the ethical and political issues connected with and resulting from climate change. By doing so, it puts it all in an ecological and historical context. In addition, the book offers solutions to some important philosophical puzzles and problems, and indicates paths of interaction between philosophy and other disciplines. The discussion about climate change and the mitigation/adaptation policies spans many areas and levels – from abstract science and philosophy to current on-the-ground politics. However, climate change is also a great a philosophical puzzle. Indeed, its existential and practical relevance can be thought to largely derive from the philosophical complications it engenders. Climate change is applied philosophy par excellence. Preventing dangerous anthropogenic climate change needs very good philosophy applied to concrete and specific practical issues. Climate change is an area where scholars from very different provenances should cooperate on equal terms, having in view a common, and really important, purpose – contribute to preventing great burdens and even the extinction of humankind and the destruction of hospitable and valuable non-human nature. (shrink)

This interdisciplinary volume brings together expert researchers coming from primatology, anthropology, ethology, philosophy of cognitive sciences, neurophysiology, mathematics and psychology to discuss both the foundations of non-human primate and human social cognition as well as the means there currently exist to study the various facets of social cognition. The first part focusses on various aspects of social cognition across primates, from the relationship between food and social behaviour to the connection with empathy and communication, offering a multitude of innovative approaches (...) that range from field-studies to philosophy. The second part details the various epistemic and methodological means there exist to study social cognition, in particular how to ascertain the proximal and ultimate mechanisms of social cognition through experimental, modelling and field studies. In the final part, the mechanisms of cultural transmission in primate and human societies are investigated, and special attention is given to how the evolution of cognitive capacities underlie primates’ abilities to use and manufacture tools, and how this in turn influences their social ecology. A must-read for both, young scholars as well as established researchers! (shrink)

A wide-ranging, comprehensive overview of pressing issues in bioethics today, this handbook takes into account current affairs and historical precedents. Interdisciplinary authorship and global examples make the handbook applicable to a variety of scholar, student, and practitioner types.

Study on being with the reference of Indic philosophy and modern perspective.

Hegel and the Challenge of Spinoza explores the powerful continuing influence of Spinoza's metaphysical thinking in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century German philosophy. George di Giovanni examines the ways in which Hegel's own metaphysics sought to meet the challenges posed by Spinoza's monism, not by disproving monism, but by rendering it moot. In this, di Giovanni argues, Hegel was much closer in spirit to Kant and Fichte than to Schelling. This book will be of interest to students and researchers interested (...) in post-Kantian Idealism, Romanticism, and metaphysics. (shrink)

This book seeks to redefine the purpose of philosophy for our times. Faced with the saturated immanence of the world, philosophy is summoned to return to its original vocation and, after a long absence in which it lost its voice, it is called on to reawaken the community and protect the life we share in common.

Much has been written on witchcraft by historians, theologians, philosophers, and anthropologists, but nothing by scientists. This book aims to reappraise witchcraft by applying to it the advances in cognitive sciences. The book is divided into four parts. Part One: Deep History deals with human emotions and drives to deepen the phenomenology of evil witchcraft agency and its female feature. Part Two: Historical Times focuses on the natural control of malefice that engendered rare state and church repressions. Surprisingly, Islamic lands (...) remained immune from stakes. Modern urbanizations are considered a blow to the persistence of rural civilizations that embedded witchcraft in their vision. Part Three: In the Laboratory applies neurosciences to specific case studies such as the personalization of misfortune, the millenary stereotype witch=woman, the reality of evil, and the contagious meme of treasure hunts. Part Four: Millennials wonders whether intentional malefic hatred is a closed chapter in the history of humanity. An Anatomy of Witchcraft is ideal reading for students and scholars. Given its interdisciplinary nature, the book will be of interest to scholars from many fields including evolutionary psychology, anthropology, women's history, and cognitive sciences. (shrink)

There is an eminent tradition of thought that sees in the phenomenon of time something contradictory. This tradition has been recently revived by some contemporary proponents of dialethism – the view that there are true contradictions. In this paper, I will contribute to this line of thinking by tracing the first steps of a dialethic account of time-consciousness. In particular, I will argue that the experiential flow of time can be accounted for in the framework of an intentionalist approach to (...) temporal perception if we conceive of time-consciousness as a quasi-multiplicity, i.e., a multiplicity of non-self-identical parts, hence the embrace of dialethism. Section 1 introduces dialethism, discusses Priest's dialethic theory of motion and time, and motivates the project of a dialethic account of time-consciousness. Section 2 introduces the intentionalist approach to time-consciousness and distinguishes pure intentionalism from sense-data intentionalism; both subscribes to a certain Principle of Simultaneous Awareness but interprets it differently. In Sect. 3, I offer an in-depth analysis of this principle and identify its core as the requirement of self-unification, i.e., the requirement that time-consciousness unifies itself in flowing without any higher-order act of unification. Section 4 then argues that pure intentionalism can satisfy this requirement by embracing dialethism. I conclude by noting how the dialethic account of time-consciousness incorporates a central extensionalist insight within an intentionalist outlook. (shrink)

Bringing together an unparalleled selection of original and translated readings from different eras and various traditions, this reader includes texts from well-known North American philosophers alongside writings by Native, Latin, African, Mexican, and Asian Americans, revealing the interweaving tapestry of ideas endemic to the Americas. Through its pluralistic approach, it promotes intercultural dialogue and understanding. Primary texts are thematically arranged around major areas of philosophical enquiry including selfhood, knowledge, learning, and ethics, with each part featuring introductory essays outlining the trajectories (...) of each section and suggestions for further primary and secondary readings. (shrink)

This paper approaches Husserl’s analysis of time-consciousness from a mereological perspective. Taking as inspiration Bergson’s idea that pure durée is a multiplicity of interpenetration, I will show, from within Husserlian phenomenology, that the absolute flow can indeed be described as a whole of interpenetrating parts. This mereological perspective will inform my re-consideration of the much-discussed issue of Husserl’s self-criticism concerning the schema of content and apprehension. It will also reveal a fundamental similarity between Husserl’s conception of the absolute flow and (...) Sartre’s conception of lived temporality. This paper consists of four sections. Section 2 presents the basic elements of Husserl’s mereology. Section 3 introduces the difficulty encountered by Husserl’s early account of time that makes use of the schema. I will examine Barry Dainton’s criticism of Husserl’s theory of time-consciousness against the background of the older debate between Meinong and Stern, a debate that has informed Husserl’s own account. Section 4 distinguishes two common criticisms of the schema from Husserl’s own self-criticism, which is in turn divided into two steps. It is shown how the second step of this self-criticism implies the interpenetration of the absolute flow and responds to Dainton’s criticism. Finally, Sect. 5 concludes with some comparative remarks. I will show how Husserl’s notion of absolute flow, as mereologically interpreted, anticipates Sartre’s conception of consciousness as self-transcendence, as well as how it accommodates the apparently conflicting mereological intuitions of Aristotle and Bergson. (shrink)

Study of "Kalimāt al-maknūnah" of Muḥammad ibn Murtaḍá Fayḍ al-Kāshī, 1598 or 1599-1680 or 168 discussed Shīʻah studies etc.

Explores and illuminates Roland Barthes' profound impact on our understanding of literary modernism.

In this article, I analyze the evolution of Husserl's view on the normativity of logic and the corresponding changes in his phenomenological analysis of judgment. Initially, in the Prolegomena, Husserl claimed that the laws of pure logic are ideal and acquire normative status only as a result of application. Later, however, he revised this position and claimed that the same laws are at once ideal and normative. Sections 1 and 2 present textual evidence for attributing such a change of position (...) to Husserl, which is not generally acknowledged in the literature. Section 3 critically examines Husserl's early position, with specific attention to the model of instantiation. Sections 4–6 identify three key stages in the development of Husserl's theory of judgment that lead to the normative conception of pure logic: (1) the critique of the dissociation of ideal content and assertive force; (2) the rejection of the instantiation model of proposition and the development of a new account in terms of identification; (3) the genetic‐phenomenological interpretation of proposition and the elaboration of the three‐layer structure of pure logic. (shrink)

Normative notions are central to Husserl’s account of intentionality: intending an object is a normative achievement, essentially admitting of fulfillment or disappointment. So is teleology: intentional conscious life is inseparable from a horizontal orientation toward “ideas in the Kantian sense.” How are they related? Is teleology essential for intentionality as a normative achievement? Or, in Husserl’s way of putting it, do relative truths “demand” ideal truths? This article explores some reasons for agreeing with Husserl that this is indeed the case. (...) In Sec. 2, I will identify a “normative turn” in Husserl’s account of the basic structure of perceptual intentionality and spell out the teleological character of this normative account. This sense of teleology is a minimal one. A more robust teleology, in the sense of an orientation toward infinite ideality, is then justified in Sec. 3 by virtue of its function in the constitution of genuine objectivity. In Sec. 4, I will turn to the noetic, especially the ego-oriented side of Husserl’s analysis, in order to clarify the normative force of infinite telos. All in all, I will argue that the normative and the teleological sides of the story are inextricably intertwined in Husserl’s account of intentional conscious life. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore Husserl’s view on the normativity of intentionality and its neutralization. Husserl reaches his mature, normative-transcendental conception of intentionality by way of critical engagement with Brentano’s position. As opposed to Brentano, Husserl does not conceive of the normativity of intentionality as deriving from the more basic character of polar opposition. Normativity comes first and it is an original, though not universal determination of intentionality which is expressed in the identificatory achievement of constitution. Even where it is (...) absent, this absence makes itself felt since neutrality is never the simple omission of normativity but essentially its neutralizing modification. The discussion of neutrality-modification in Ideas I is, however, problematic, as I will argue by drawing upon Husserl’s research manuscripts. I aim to show that neutralization is not a single but a group of closely related intentional modifications and that ways of neutralization are best conceptualized as changes of attitude. I will then examine phantasy and aesthetic consciousness as involving two such neutralizing attitudes. What they have in common is a spirit of playfulness in contrast to the serious commitment to truth that characterizes original intentionality. The neutralization of normativity takes place in play. (shrink)

The modal account of luck has become very popular and influential in the past decade. More recently, some of its proponents have also put forth a modal account of risk and argued that we ought to apply it to problems both in and out of philosophy. This paper tries to show that modal conceptions of luck and risk are mistaken.

Culture, narrative and law -- The narrative turn in the legal field -- Fact construction : contexts, roles and methods -- Rediscovering the role of the client -- The lawyer as translator -- The judge as a creative decision maker -- Laypeople in action I : natives' stories -- Laypeople in action II : foreigners' stories -- Collaborative lawyering with vulnerable clients : asylum seekers' stories.

While methodological individualism is a fundamental approach within the social sciences, it is often misunderstood. This highlights the need for a discursive and up-to-date reference work analyzing this approach’s classic arguments and assumptions in the light of contemporary issues in sociology, economics and philosophy. This two-volume handbook presents the first comprehensive overview of methodological individualism. Chapters discuss historical and contemporary debates surrounding this central approach within the social sciences, as well as cutting edge developments related to the individualist tradition with (...) philosophical and scientific implications. Bringing together multiple contributions from the world’s leading experts on this important tradition of theorizing, this collective endeavor provides teachers, researchers and students in sociology, economics, and philosophy with a reliable and critical understanding of the founding principles, key thinkers and intellectual development of MI since the late 19th century. ​. (shrink)